


Why are you here?

by Perelynn



Category: Altered Carbon (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-11-28 21:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18213569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perelynn/pseuds/Perelynn
Summary: I don’t want your excuses, and I don’t want your promises. We’ve tried enough times, Ryker. Things are just not working out.





	1. Love and lust

Kristine opened the door, saw the familiar face and sighed.

‘Why are you here? I told you it’s over.’  
‘Kristin…’  
‘No. I don’t want your excuses, and I don’t want your promises. We’ve tried enough times, Ryker. Things are just not working out. I’m tired of your insecurity and your jealousy. I cannot spend the rest of my life tiptoeing around your trust issues.’  
‘Wow. That’s not how I expected you to describe your pretty happy life.’

Something was off. Kristin squinted, looking into his eyes. What she saw there made her knees wobble a bit. The man stepped closer, and she stepped back, watching helplessly as he closes the door behind him, her mind still astounded from the realization.

‘Kovacs?’  
‘Hello, Kristin.’

She finally came to her senses. Her gun flew up, aiming at his handsome face. She knew he could disarm her in a heartbeat, but it was a matter of habit.

‘Where is Ryker?’ she asked angrily.  
‘I have no idea.’  
‘What did you do to him?’  
‘I didn’t anything to him. As far as I know, he is fine.’  
‘Fine?’ she shrieked. ‘ _Fine_? You come here wearing his skin, and you dare tell me to my face he’s _FINE_?’  
‘Kristin, listen…’  
‘You tell me what you did to him, or I swear, I will shoot you!’  
‘Kristin, Ryker still has his old body.’

This made her lower the gun a little.

‘What?’  
‘This body is a clone.’

The man’s finger tipped on his forehead, and she realized what was bothering her all along. There was no scar crossing his right eyebrow. 

‘You cloned Ryker?’ she said incredulously, her gun swinging back up. ‘You didn’t just double-sleeve back then. You made yet another illegal copy and you kept it to yourself?!’  
‘You got most of it right,’ Kovacs said. ‘Except it wasn’t me.’  
‘You told me about your double-sleeving!’  
‘Yes, well, the double-sleeving was me. But not the rest. I didn’t make this clone.’  
‘Who did, then?’  
‘Miriam Bancroft,’ he replied.  
‘What?’  
‘Remember that island I told you about? I personally have no memories of what my double did there - he had fun, no doubt - but Miriam Bancroft used his time there creatively. She probably had guessed that sooner or later I’d grow bored and decide to leave, so she took my genetic material and ordered a copy of me to be grown for her pleasure.’  
‘You cannot be a clone,’ Kristin said. ‘It’s only been two years. It would be impossible to slow-grow a body so fast.’  
‘Clearly, not only Isaac Bancroft can afford the organic 3D printer, then. Whatever was the way of copying, Ryker’s clone was made and stored at the resleeving facility on that damned island.’  
‘Oh, I wish I could add this to her charges,’ Kristin growled. 

The man gave her an eyebrow. The scarless one.

‘Why don’t you?’ 

She growled again. Was he teasing her? If she pressed charges, Kovacs would have to relinquish this body. Kristin couldn’t go through that. Not again.

He gave her a ghost of a smile. It was a Takeshi Kovacs smile. Ryker never made a smile so small an affair.

She scoffed, then put her gun away.

‘Come in,’ she said.

They went down the staircase. All Kristin could do was walk at a decent speed, without jumping or dancing in excitement. There was nothing to be excited _about_. A criminal offence was committed. Yes, it allowed Takeshi Kovacs to come back to her wearing the sleeve she loved him in. But he didn’t really say anything about coming back _to her_ , and it was not right for him to be wearing an illegal sleeve, and did she mention the criminal offence?

‘If this body was stashed in some obscure island,’ she said, ‘how come you’re wearing it?’  
‘It’s a long story,’ he replied. ‘Short version: I was in a tough spot and I made a lucky guess. I needed to get away, fast, and be needlecast into a body that no one would think I’d be occupying. It was a bit of a gamble - there was a chance for me to end up in the actual Ryker - but it worked out. I woke up on that island, I got out of the tank, I found my way to the Bay City. So, here I am.’  
‘Why?’ she said, her voice pitching a bit.  
‘Why what?’  
‘Why are you here?’ she whispered. ‘Why did you come to me, wearing this face, this body, making me…’ She stopped right in time before giving too much stupid shit away. ‘What do you want?’

Kovacs lowered himself in the armchair, the same one he once sat in when she was stitching him, and looked at her from down below.

‘Frankly, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I thought I would make you two a gift... give Ryker a clone of his own, while I would resleeve into something else. You are both police. It wouldn’t hurt for you to have backups. But now you’re saying you and Ryker are no longer a thing. And, to be honest, I don’t give a crap about Ryker.’

Kristin could feel tears swelling in her eyes. She turned away, quickly, trying to hide the hurricane of emotions clashing inside her. Kovacs, here. In the Ryker’s body, increasing its appeal tenfold. Except he didn’t care about the effect he was having on her. He didn’t come because he missed her; it was just a friendly visit. He didn’t wear this body for her; he wanted to discard it. 

‘Hey,’ came his voice. 

She felt his fingers touching hers, and she found herself grasping back at them before she knew it. 

‘What happened between you and Ryker?’ Kovacs asked softly.  
‘Long story,’ she replied, echoing him. ‘Short version: he was not you.’

His fingers twitched, squeezing hers briefly. Kristin mustered her courage and looked into his eyes. His gaze was as intense and imperious as she remembered. Ryker could never quite manage such a stare.

Ryker could never manage things Takeshi Kovacs did with ease.

When Elias just got his sleeve back, everything seemed like it could go back to normal. The sex was great, at first, with no guilt of secretly cheating on your boyfriend with somebody else wearing his sleeve. They went back to work, Tanaka accepting them both graciously back into the team. They were moving on with their lives, reunited, ready to stand together against the future hardships. Or so they thought.

Until the name ‘Kovacs’ slipped off her lips when she and Ryker were making love.  
Until Ryker made a mistake in their investigation, and then another, the way Kovacs never would.  
Until she realized she missed Kovacs, his curt remarks, his wry humor, his deadly efficiency, his gentle touch.

Kristin dropped onto a chair, sobbing, words coming out of her mouth, unbidden. Suddenly, big arms enveloped her, lifting her, and she found herself sitting on Kovacs’ lap, his palms stroking her hair, his lips whispering into her ear.

‘Kristin, don’t cry. I’m here. I’m here.’  
‘I still don’t know why,’ she said, making a half-hearted attempt to wrench free. ‘What about your princess?’

He fidgeted uncomfortably.

‘There is no princess,’ he said.  
‘What?’  
‘Quell is dead,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I found her stack. Fragged.’

Kristin’s hand flew to her mouth, her own qualms forgotten.

‘Oh, Kovacs, I’m so sorry.’  
‘This was expected,’ he muttered. ‘Rei would never leave Quell's stack laying around without any booby traps attached.’ 

Something was off again. Kristin frowned. Kovacs was speaking way too carefully.

‘Wait,’ she said slowly. ‘When you left me two years ago… did you know already that your hunt was doomed?’  
‘I suspected it.’  
‘Then why did you leave? Why did you make me believe there is a possible happy future there for you?’ 

He averted his eyes. 

‘You deserved to get back what you’ve lost. Everything that my sister took away from you. Everything that could be brought back.’

Kristin jumped to her feet. 

‘Are you telling me that was some fucking _self-sacrifice_?’ she shouted. ‘Did you leave because you had somehow decided this would be good for me?’  
‘It was good for you.’  
‘Only you forgot to ask me what _I_ thought was good for me!’  
‘You loved Ryker!’ he said defensively. ‘You were paying his sleeve mortgage. You watched me like a hawk lest I damage his sleeve. You whispered his name when you were delirious in the hospital. You wanted him back!’  
‘Yes, I loved Ryker. Did it ever occurred to you that I loved you, too?’

Here. She’s said it.  
…and Kovacs didn’t even notice.

‘You loved this sleeve!’ he shouted back, standing up and towering over her. ’The only reason you got attracted to me was because of the skin I was wearing!’  
‘Oh, was it?’ she said icily. ‘I thought you said Envoys couldn’t read minds.’  
‘I didn’t need to! I knew I was wearing your boyfriend!’  
‘Love is not only pheromones, you fucking dumbhead!’  
‘Oh, so you’re telling me this sleeve is inconsequential,’ Kovacs said with a ferocious smile. ‘This dumb pretty face, this stupidly large shoulders, these round puppy eyes, they don’t matter? You would love me in any sleeve, right?’  
‘I don’t know,’ Kristine said.  
‘That’s what I mean.’ Kovacs said darkly.  
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s what _I_ mean. You didn’t give me a chance to know. You just decided everything for me. You made a choice and you ran away. You left me, you coward!’

He winced. She waited for him to retort, to talk back. He didn’t. His shoulders stooped, his head lowered, his big hands hung limply along his sides. It was the first time that he looked somewhat like Ryker.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I was afraid... to hope.’  
‘You better be sorry,’ she said, stepping towards him. ‘And you better kiss me right here, right now.’

Kovacs’ head jerked up, his hazel eyes piercing hers with familiar intensity.

‘Kristine…’

Kristine has had enough of this. She closed the distance between them, stepped on her tiptoes and kissed him fully in the mouth.

His body came to life, his arms enveloping her, his lips getting hungrier, bolder.

‘Next time you go,’ she said in between fervent kisses, ‘you’re taking me with you.’  
‘Deal,’ he muttered in that husky voice of his she loved so much.

_And you are damn sure keeping this sleeve._


	2. Plots and politics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where there is Kovacs, there is trouble. Could she expect anything else?

‘Fuck,’ comes his voice. ‘Not _again_.’

Kristin wakes up. In the darkness, she sees an outline of his figure at the edge of the bed they share every night since he came back. Kovacs is looking at the wall, moving his head as if following something that’s behind it. 

‘Kovacs, what’s wrong?’  
‘Get dressed,’ he says, not looking at her. ‘Now. Boots first.’

He is already up, putting his clothes on. She follows his lead. Before she is done he starts moving around quietly, first to the front door, then to the back entrance. She notices some oblong objects he places on the floor - small objects glinting menacingly. Next, he grabs the nearby piece of fabric - one of the table napkins, by the way, a keepsake from her mother - drenches it with water from the bud vase on the table - he gave Kristin these roses just the day before - and puts the wet cloth around his face, motioning her to do the same.

‘Kovacs, what…’

Her words drown in the loud knock. 

‘Kristin Ortega! Open the door, in the name of the Protectorate.’  
‘Down!’ Kovacs whispers hoarsely, falling down and bringing her with him. 

With a deafening BOOM the small objects go off, taking what looks half of her apartment with them. There are flames, smoke and debris everywhere. Miraculously, Kovacs and herself are unharmed. Kristin wonders fleetingly at their luck, and then discards the possibility. Luck is not the word she associates with Takeshi Kovacs.

‘Follow me,’ he commands.

He is already on the move, maneuvering through the rubble with such grace and efficiency it makes her wonder if he did this before. Maybe he did. Multiple times probably. She copies him as best she can, squinting a bit as the smoke eats at her eyes. Smoke is good, she realizes. Thanks to the smoke, they manage to get outside and dart into the nearby alley, leaving behind the squad of armored people who can only be CTAC.

‘We need to get out of here,’ Kovacs says quietly. ‘You know the city. Take us to the dirtiest ghetto you can think of.’ 

Kristin wants to ask a dozen of questions, but she recognizes a tough spot when she sees one.

They walk in silence to the next-to-closest hypertube entrance, take the train, and get off in the poorest part of the city. They rent a trailer for a monthly fee that wouldn’t get you a doghouse back downtown. It’s a small, filthy den that smells of cats piss, but they are safe here. For now. 

‘What the hell was all that?’ Kristin asks, when they are finally settled.  
‘CTAC,’ Kovacs responds flatly.  
‘I got that much, thanks. Why are they after us?’

Kovacs doesn’t answer immediately. First, he scavenges the small fridge and gets out something that looks suspiciously like moonshine. He fills two paper cups - the sharp smell of alcohol almost stings her nostrils - and gives one to her, paired with some chips that probably were fresh some time in the last century.

Up close the drink smells even worse. Kristin still gulps it down. The hooch burns her throat, but after the first shock, it feels good.

‘When I told you about my search for Quell,’ Kovacs says presently, ‘I didn’t tell you all the truth.’  
‘Well,’ she says, ‘you’re sure as fuck telling it now!’

He nods. He looks haunted, almost terrified. Usually, one wouldn’t be surprised to see such a look on a person who just escaped CTAC. But Kristin saw how aptly and matter-of-factly he acted through the attack. It’s not the Corps that worries him, and this fills her with dread. What can be worse than CTAC?

‘When I left you two years ago,’ he begins, ‘I had no idea where to start. With Rei gone, there was no one around to ask where she could hide Quell’s stack. The only thing I knew was that the DHF wasn’t stored anywhere on the Head in the Clouds. Rei was ready to abandon the satellite. She was trying to persuade me to get with her to the shattle when she mentioned Quell. She didn’t care if the satellite plunges into the sea.’

Kristin nods and takes another sip of the burning drink.

‘Then I remembered Ava Elliot,’ Kovacs continues. ‘She was a dipper, and I needed someone to hack into all virtual storages Rei had access to. Long story short, I hired Ava. I tasked her with perusing the storages in search for the right DHF. She wrote a script I believe, to chip off snippets of memories from every file, and to do face recognition on the content. Anyway, the process was not fast. In retrospective, it took months. After the first week, I got restless…’  
‘Bored,’ Kristin corrects him.  
‘Um, yes, maybe. Anyways. I decided to take off. I left Earth and went back to the Harlan’s World. Rei mentioned she’d visited it, and anyway, it’s our home world…’  
‘Is it?’ Kristin asks eagerly. ‘I didn’t know.’  
‘It is. I spent a year wandering the planet, looking for possible clues. I found none. One day, Ava contacted me.’  
‘Did she find something?’  
‘No. Actually, her search was as fruitless as mine. But she had an idea. See, Ava was the person who made a copy of my own DHF file when I was doing the double-sleeving.’

Kristin frowns. 

‘What does your double-sleeving have to do with anything? Ah! Did she see snippets of your memories? Something that could identify the location of Quell’s stack?’  
‘No. Not exactly.’

His voice is hoarse, his hazel eyes are almost black now.

‘Are you alright?’ Kristin asks tentatively.

He dries his drink and refills his paper cup instead of the answer. His hands are shaking. Ortega feels her fear creeping up on her.

‘I was always wondering,’ he says softly, ‘how could Rei back Quell up without her knowing. I mean, Quell invented stacks. She knew more about DHFs and needlecasting than anyone.’

Kristin clenches her fists. The constant mention of the name of the person who killed half her family - thanks goodness she was able to bring at least her nephews back - makes her anger flare. But she wants Kovacs to speak, so she tries to control her fury.

‘I’m more surprised that your crazy sister would back her up at all,’ she says, ‘let alone keep her. Wouldn’t Falconer remember it was Reileen who killed her and betrayed the Uprising? If Falconer ever got resleeved, I bet she would want revenge. Isn’t it the best way to get yourself killed, having an angry Envoy after you?’

Kovacs gives her a hint of a smile.

‘Maybe I should have talked to you about it before I left,’ he says. ‘You are pretty quick to realize something that took me years to figure out.’  
‘You should have talked to me period,’ Kristin deadpans. ‘Glad we agree on that. Do go on.’

His smile disappears as if it was never there.

‘You are right. Rei never backed Quell up. Quell did it herself.’

Kristin frowns again.

‘How?’ she asks. ‘I mean, Falconer was a DHF guru and all that, but I would think CTAC would investigate such a possibility long ago.’  
‘They sure did,’ he agrees. ‘Quell didn’t use any of the conventional methods. She backed herself up _on my stack_.’  
‘What?’ Kristin gives him a look of disbelief. ‘Is it even possible?’  
‘Well, stacks have enough storage space to accommodate almost infinite amount of memories,’ Kovacs reminds her. ‘It’s been centuries, and no one had had a shortage yet.’  
‘But… double consciousness in the same stack? Wouldn’t it make you mental?’  
‘It did… in a way. Quell archived her backup, so it was kind of dormant. But not completely. I kept having visions… of her. Talking to me.’

As he speaks, deep lines appear on his brow and cheeks. He looks like he has aged twenty years. 

‘Poor Kovacs,’ Kristin says gently. ‘So, how did you find out?’  
‘It was Ava. She thought something was iffy even the first time she was working my DHF. This time, she offered me to do something akin to phychosurgery. She was going to check if she can isolate Quell’s data and extract her DHF into a separate stack. That is, if she happens to find the data at all. I didn’t believe she would.’  
‘But she did,’ Kristin says.

Kovacs nods. He is not in a hurry to continue his tale. Kristin sits quietly for a while, too, thinking of what she just heard.

‘Well, this definitely makes a lot of things clear,’ she says. ‘Your sister didn’t back your princess up. If she could, she would have destroyed Falconer. But she couldn’t! She would need to tell you first, and you wouldn’t let her do Quell any harm.’  
‘All these years,’ he says softly. ‘All this time, I was carrying her with me. I missed her so much, and she was always so close.’  
‘Well,’ Kristin says hastily. ‘Did Ava manage to spin her up?’  
‘She did,’ Kovacs says. ‘I had a sleeve prepared. But we weren’t sure if the extraction worked, and we didn’t want the neurons to glitch and to make the sleeve unusable. So we put Quell into a synth at first. Like Lizzie Elliot.’

It is the second time in her life that Kristin sees Kovacs cry.

‘That moment when I saw the synth take her shape,’ he whispers, his voice trembling. ‘When I looked into her eyes and saw _her_ looking back at me…’

Kristin suddenly feels the need to punch someone. Preferably Quellcrist Falconer. Which would probably be a death sentence, but a girl can dream.

‘We never used the sleeve I had prepared for her,’ he says. ‘She kept the synth. First couple of weeks after she got decanted I felt exhilarated. We talked, we made love, we talked again. All was well… until she got back to her plans for changing the counter at the Core and started gathering followers.’  
‘Shit,’ Kristin says. ‘Still wanting to use death as a great equalizer?’

Kovacs nods. 

‘I tried talking sense into her,’ he says. ‘I tried explaining to her that immortality is not our enemy, it’s our ally. That is not up to her to decide who lives and who dies. That here are other means to fight inequality and discrimination. All was for nothing. I couldn’t get through to her.’

Kristin finds herself nodding, too. It took Falconer two hundred years to come where she was, and it would take more than Takeshi Kovacs to make her waver.

‘Gradually, I realized I would have to stop her,’ he continues, staring right in front of him blankly. ‘It was the story with Reileen all over again. Quell wanted me at her side. She wouldn’t let me leave, but she wouldn’t let me make any decisions, either. Eventually, I had to fight her. To rebel against the woman I once loved.’

He pours himself another drink. Kristin keeps her face carefully blank. Right now, she hates Quell’s gut, but it would hardly be productive to show it. No wonder he looks like he is seeing demons. He is.

‘I managed to bring her down,’ Kovacs says, ‘at a cost.’  
‘How?’  
‘I had to wait for the attack to start,’ he replies. ‘The assault to the Core. Otherwise I had no chance to catch her unawares. But when the attack began, her focus was elsewhere, the goal of her life right ahead. Still, I had to employ all my skills to trick her, and I nearly failed.’  
‘What happened to Quell?’ Kristin asks, a bit too impatiently.  
‘Killed. Shot through the stack,’ he replies. ‘I managed to get out, but I lost my sleeve and had to be needlecast away in a hurry.’

Finally, it clicks.

‘When did the attack happen?’ Kristin asks.  
‘About two weeks ago.’  
‘So, that’s why CTAC is after you.’  
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I thought they wouldn’t be able to track me further than Miriam Bancroft’s island. I would never have come to you if I thought I’d put you in danger.’

Kristin lets out a bitter laugh.

‘Oh, I know how they tracked you down past the island,’ she says. ’It was me.’

Kovacs suddenly gets very still.

‘What?’  
‘I was trying to register this body,’ she reminds him, waving at his sleeve. ‘To make you owning it official. At first it looked like I can strike a private deal with Ryker. You would be leasing this body from him in exchange for monthly payments…’

He relaxes visibly.

‘Yes, yes, I remember you explaining this to me the first days I got here.’  
‘Well, the red tape turned out to be not that simple. I had to fill some government forms. That’s probably how they have found out where you are. Your name showed up in paperwork. I’m sorry.’  
‘Don’t be. Without this, I don’t know if I ever could tell you about all this.’ 

She smiles at him, tentatively. To her relief, he returns the smile. He still looks like he went through hell and back, but there is certain tranquility about him that wasn’t there before. As if he reached closure.

‘So, what now?’ she asks.  
‘I don’t know,’ he replies.  
‘I find it fucking ironic,’ she says. ‘CTAC is after you, but you were actually on their side. You stopped Quell. You prevented another Uprising. They should be giving you a medal, not chasing you like a criminal.’

He scoffs.

‘The Corps doesn’t know that,’ he says. ‘And they don’t care.’  
‘Well, I care,’ she counters. ‘And I don’t want to spend the rest of my days on the run, hiding in shitholes like this. We need to find a way to clear your name.’  
‘That would be nice,’ he agrees sarcastically. ‘But I have no idea how.’

Kristin grins at him.

‘I do.’

***

‘Exclusive Interview! A Witness to New Uprising Speaks to the News! Former Envoy Takeshi Kovacs Tells All!’

Sandy Kim can hardly believe her ears when Kristin tells her what kind of material she has. Still, the reporter wastes no time jumping at such a juicy opportunity. The press has nothing to fear from CTAC. They are not giving Kovacs asylum or anything of the sort. He doesn’t need it. He is ready to face to Corps.

‘Takeshi Kovacs Arrested Right at the Studio!’

The CTAC does come for him, but it’s too late. His fate is known. The publicity around his name is huge. Millions of viewers follow the progress on his case.

‘Former Envoy Cleared Of All Charges! Takeshi Kovacs Walks Free.’

He is pardoned... for a price. They sentence him to an exile on one of the Settled World of his choice. Once he picks the world, he is to never leave it again. He is banned from needlecasting outside the planet in any way, shape or form.

‘Kovacs Chooses the Harlan’s World! He Is Going There With His Lady Love! The Girl Really Has a Gift with the Press! Watch Them Depart in Our Exclusive Coverage!’

All in all, Kristin thinks massaging her stinging knuckles, it can be called a happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic, please leave a review.


End file.
